


you keep your socks on in bed.

by tuesday_reads



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andreil, Andrew Minyard Has Feelings, Andrew Minyard Loves Neil Josten, Demisexual Neil Josten, Exy (All For The Game), M/M, POV Andrew Minyard, Soft Andrew Minyard, Soft Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, a character study on andrew maybe ??? idk lol, aftg, andrew thinking about how much he loves neil, andrews in love, basically just flowery nonsense, bein cute, if you don't like "flowery" writing you probably wont like this, it gets better the as it goes on, its just fluff ya'll, its just them - Freeform, not that it rlly matters, okay ill say it. its drabble. happy ?, set during neils last year at palmetto and andrews first year pro, sprinkling of angst at the start??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:29:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22084177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday_reads/pseuds/tuesday_reads
Summary: Andrew can't think when he's kissing Neil Josten, starting striker for the Palmetto State Foxes. The bone-deep apathy he's spent the past 23 odd years assembling shatters into nothing; a blanket of stark white static that covers his brain. Without it, Andrew's weak and vulnerable, but he's free. It just so happens that the very thing causing this conundrum is also the reason for his continued willingness to metabolize oxygen into carbon dioxide. To breathe. To live. And to heal.or,Neil makes Andrew quiet in the same way the stars do. Neil is grotty and wears socks in bed during morning make-out sessions. And both of them are full of love and yearning for the other.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 29
Kudos: 325





	you keep your socks on in bed.

**Author's Note:**

> hey friends! this is my first fic for this fandom and my first piece of writing after a Very Long hiatus from writing in general. This fic is loosely based off of this tumblr post (will link as soon as I find it aghdJ), but is primarily just a bit of drabble to get me back into the writing scene since it's been a hot minute. Title is some lyrics from Texas Reznikoff by Mitski. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> (also, i know it's super short and does Not call for a playlist, but what can I say? I'm a sucker for a fic with a playlist. So try these out if you're the same:  
> Dog teeth – Nicole Dollanganger  
> I bet on losing dogs – Mitski  
> Okay that's it!)

“I don’t want to say it again.”

It took a long time for them to reach this point, for Andrew’s do or don’t statements to turn into something gentler. To replace an ‘I won’t say it again’ with this whispered honesty. Andrew always said that Neil was the one with the complex, but he'd been sidestepping truths his whole life. He never lied, no, but he scraped the edge of honesty. By emitting certain words he found that their true meaning could be lost somewhere inside of a demand. It was better than laying himself bare in a self-assured proclamation. It was safer. But as he leans above Neil now, he swallows his instincts, not for the first time this year, and lets what is inside, out.

“I don’t want to say it again,” he repeats, hedging closer to anger than boredom because he doesn’t know how much more control he can relinquish.

Neil looks up at him, blue eyes jumping to life like a light switch flicked on. Andrew tightens his fingers in Neil’s hair, which is mussed and looking similar to when he first steps off the court after practice. Neil’s hands still under Andrew's shirt. Andrew hates him.

“Is something wrong? Do you want to stop?" Neil asks. He’s bleary-eyed as he squints against the morning sunlight, but he seems to have come to attention at Andrew's tone. Or his words. It doesn’t really matter which.

Despite stating twice that he won’t – no, doesn’t – want to ask Neil again, he does.

“Do you want to stop?” Andrew grinds out through clenched teeth.

Neil looks at him, startled for only a second before tightening his grip on the place where his hands hold Andrew's ribs.

“I’m enjoying it.”

“That does not mean you don’t want me to stop,” Andrew deadpans, leaning away from Neil’s body. He’s like putty in Andrew's hands, and sometimes it's too much to stand.

Neil rolls his eyes, “No, Andrew. I don’t want to stop.”

The tension in Andrew's shoulders loosens slightly as he holds tighter onto Neil. It shouldn’t be this easy, he thinks. It shouldn’t feel this okay. He’s leaning down to kiss Neil’s neck again when he catches a smile from the corner of his eye. It’s not the butcher's smile, unyielding and masochistic, but Neil Jostens. It's small and secret and it’s something that very few of even the Foxes have been entrusted with. It tugs at something inside of Andrew, and suddenly he’s undone all over again.

He’s working at the spot where Neil bares a vicious burn scar in the shape of an iron, trying to lose himself in the puckered skin. It doesn’t quite work, and when Neil lifts up at the attention it only serves to short-circuit Andrew’s brain further. In the back of his mind, he sees Neil sprawled on the ground after being slammed into with an exy racket. He’s picturing Neil mocking his two-fingered salute and the day he came back from evermore which that fucking tattoo and ‘I am not a pipedream.’ Suddenly they’re on the roof breathing in acrid smoke, in Neil’s old room kissing, in a beaten-down hotel room in Baltimore and it's too much, it's too much, it's too much. Feeling had become a choice for Andrew; he’d worked damn hard for his apathy, but every moment spent with Neil sent the wall’s he’d worked so hard to build crumbling.

Below him, Neil is making some truly spectacular sounds. They sufficiently serve to tether Andrew back to his own body, like an anchor mooring a ship at bay. He’s moved his hands from the knot of Neil’s hair, and they clench in the bedsheets where they now bracket Neil’s head. Here like this, above the man he can now admit to himself he loves, he’s okay. He’s a thousand years from Drake and his bed, a thousand light-years away from pills and exy and everything that never mattered to him. It’s just Neil, which is to say it’s everything.

Suddenly, Neil grabs at one of Andrew's bare wrists – it took a long time for them to get here, too – and holds tight. Andrews knows he’s stronger than Neil, but sometimes he forgets that Neil is a professional athlete. The way he’s gripping Andrew now is a sure reminder; there’s probably going to be a bruise tomorrow. Andrew takes the hint and starts to work his way down Neil’s torso, but is abruptly stopped by hands yanking him up by the face.

“What is it, junkie? I don’t know if you can tell, but I’m kind of busy,” Andrew gets out, a little more breathless and rasp stricken than he’d intended.

“Nothing. You were getting too far away,” Neil sounds as wrecked as Andrew feels. “I missed you.”

He hums thoughtfully before saying, “Well I can’t get you off from up here, so make up your mind.”

Neil wraps his arms around the back of Andrew's neck and lets all of his weight fall into the motion, effectively pulling Andrew down towards his mouth. Neil whispers an airy “Okay,” and then they’re kissing again. If someone walked in on them now, during this exact moment formed of these exact seconds, it would be near impossible to know where Andrew began, or Neil ended. Their bodies are as close as physics will allow; Andrew’s arms bent at the elbow with Neil’s still draped carelessly around his neck. Neil’s got a leg hitched up to wrap around Andrew's calf and the other one precariously close to dangling off the edge of the bed. They’ve become one entity, a being formed from trauma and turmoil that has, against all odds, grown into trust and totality. It’s a fragile thing, but Andrew knows he will spend the rest of his life fighting tooth and nail for its safety.

Andrew’s eyes are closed as Neil’s mouth works hot and heavy against his own. His fingers have crept up into the sides of Andrew's hair for purchase, but the sensation is a frivolous thing. This is how it goes, ever since they first kissed on the Fox tower roof. Their lips meet, and suddenly Andrew is wiped clean, which is near impossible for someone who has endured what Andrew has, photographic memory be damned. It takes serious effort, and Andrew barely matches the feeling, but he finds it akin to being the sort of drunk that has you heavy-lidded and slow, like you’ve been locked inside the bathroom with only yourself, the rest of the world forgotten behind a closed door. Everything falls away: the cotton sheets under Andrew's palms; the pull of his lip between Neil’s teeth; the scratch behind his left shoulder; Neil’s orange socked foot against his ankle. It all becomes background noise until the only thing left in his brain is Neil, Neil, Neil, over and over and over again.

It’s all too soon that Neil pulls away.

“’Drew?” his voice is soft and deep, like it’s been pulled straight from below.

Andrew stares at Neil’s face, where the ugly burn scar sits between his left eye and a freckle that Andrew loves to kiss. He’s looking at Neil, but he’s not really _looking_ at Neil. If Andrew were capable of forming a coherent thought, he might wonder how he’d been granted the privilege of having and holding and kissing somebody who understands him so completely. But he can’t. He can’t fucking think. Instead, he stares dazedly at the man in front of him, who looks back with chapped lips parted into a smile. It’s like looking at the stars, Andrew thinks, or feels. He blinks once before chasing Neil’s mouth, and then, like always, there’s nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading my actual words that I actually wrote and actually finished! Any and all constructive criticisms are welcome and appreciated. If you liked it, don't forget to leave a kudos! It will make my heart sing... and fuel my ego to possibly spill out more of this sort of stuff for this (and other, cough cough trc) fandoms.
> 
> Much love, Tuesday <3


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